Luggage carts for arriving passengers have become a fixture at airports and other passenger terminals around the world, enabling passengers to load and transport luggage on carts to parking lots or curbside bus stops or taxi stands. The carts are abandoned after use. Typically, the abandoned carts are gathered by hand and returned to retrieval locations proximate to the “baggage” claim area for reuse by arriving passengers.
There have been efforts to semi-automate the transport of empty carts from departure areas, drop-off areas and pick-up areas (i.e. curb sites) to baggage claim areas over comparatively short distances. Such systems have employed a single straight line conveyor to move nested carts from a feeder station, in a departure area, to a retrieval station, at a baggage claim or other area where empty carts are stored in a single file for access by passengers requiring carts.
Systems for moving small numbers of carts over short distances in straight line paths for single file storage are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,518,072 and 5,360,094. However, there is a need for apparatus for more efficiently handling and moving large numbers of carts over comparatively long distances and in other than straight-line paths, that is, paths with one or more curved portions.
The present invention provides a new and improved conveyor railway system and method for the efficient transport of empty luggage carts over long distances and for the distribution of the carts into parallel ranks of carts for reuse by luggage-bearing travelers.
The new system employs a series of straight and curved rail modular conveyorized sections, which may be assembled as required to form a railway path from a remote location such as a parking lot to a retrieval station where travelers can readily access the carts to transport their luggage. As an important aspect of the invention, the cart railway has a cart separator which separates and spaces ganged carts manually placed in a loading or collecting station at the head of the conveyor path and a shuttle dispenser, at the foot of the path, which accepts returning carts and distributes them in parallel ranks in the retrieval station.
For a more complete understanding of the invention and a better appreciation of its attendant advantages, reference should be made to the accompanying drawings and the following detailed description.